When someone delivers a PowerPoint presentation to an audience, it is not a comfortable experience to remain tied to your computer. This may potentially hamper your interaction with your audience and interrupt the flow of your presentation. An alternative approach is to have an assistant manage the slides and carry out your instructions. That way, you would not be needed to be tied to the screen, but passing on the instructions can similarly affect your flow of speech. You can find a way out of this by using a presentation clicker. Equipped with these presentation or PowerPoint clickers, you will be able to roam the room as much as you want and change the slides or point at different sections of the slides at ease.
These clickers are just like remote controls, which will enable you to manage your slides from a distance. The first of these clickers used to come attached with a wire cable, but the current presentation clickers are wireless ones and afford the presenter complete freedom of movement. A modern presentation clicker or pointer works through the laser technology and comes with other useful features as well. One of them is the automatic time manger. With this, you can pre-set time limit for each presentation slide. So that you will get to hear a warning sound when you are halfway through the time mark and again when you have gone beyond it. This is a very useful feature since you will have a set time to deliver your presentation and you will not like to miss presenting any of the valuable information just because you have no more time in hand.
Typically, a presentation clicker will allow you to navigate between slides, control volume, present a blackscreen and manage your time. The most basic of the clickers would allow one to navigate the slides from a distance of a maximum 40 feet, which is enough if you are presenting your speech before an office audience. However, for public representations, which are generally organized in large hall rooms, you may consider having a clicker able to function from a maximum of 100 feet.
Some of the best PowerPoint clickers that are currently available in the market are SP400 Smart-Pointer Wireless Presenter, priced at USD 39.99; Remote Red Laser Wireless PowerPoint Presentation Pointer, priced at USD29.99; Kensington Wireless Presenter with Laser Pointer, priced at USD49.99. For a more sophisticated presentation clicker, you may choose from the range of Crystal Graphics models, starting from USD49, with the high end models costing as much as USD 249.